How to reduce Booking commissions thanks to a high-performing website

reduce booking commissions

Get direct bookings without breaking your distribution

If Booking brings you volume, it also costs you margin. The goal isn’t to leave the platform overnight, but to rebalance your sales mix so your website becomes a profitable, predictable and controllable channel. A high‑performing website acts like a full‑time salesperson: it reassures, responds quickly, highlights your differentiation, and above all converts visitors into direct customers with a smooth journey.

The main lever is simple: increase the share of direct bookings by reducing dependence on OTAs, while keeping Booking as a source of occupancy (especially in low season or on certain dates). To achieve this, your site must excel on three fronts: conversion (UX/booking engine), acquisition (SEO/SEA/retargeting), and reassurance (proof, clarity, policies). It’s the whole system that reduces the share of commissions paid.

Understand what you really pay (and what you can shift to your site)

Before optimising, you need to identify the mechanism. Commissions vary by market, visibility, programmes (such as Genius or promotions), and activated options. Your OTA selling cost is not limited to a percentage: it also includes pricing dependency, operational effort, and sometimes pressure on your terms (cancellation, parity, etc.). On the other side, a direct booking also has a cost (payment, marketing, booking tool, support), but this cost becomes manageable and optimisable.

To make a clear diagnosis of commissions and their logic, you can consult this resource: Understanding how commissions work on ….

The right question isn’t how to avoid any commission, but how to make direct selling attractive enough for the customer to naturally choose your site. Your site doesn’t need to beat Booking on everything: it must win on experience, information, trust, and a perceptible added value.

The site as a conversion machine: the fundamentals that reduce commissions

A high‑performing site isn’t just pretty. It’s a journey designed to move a visitor (often in a hurry, on mobile, comparing) from interest to booking in a few minutes. When your conversion improves, you mechanically offset part of the OTA volume: with equal traffic, you get more direct bookings, therefore fewer commissions.

Simplicity, readability, and removing friction

Establishments lose direct bookings for surprisingly simple reasons: too many menus, too much text, heavy photos, a discreet Book button, essential information impossible to find (parking, opening times, cancellation policy, access, pets, etc.). The more you force the customer to search, the more you send them back to the OTAs, which have industrialised the experience.

A minimalist, well‑structured design increases comprehension and speeds up the decision. To go further on this point, here is a useful internal article: The importance of simplicity and minimalism in web design.

A booking engine that is visible, fast, and without surprises

Your booking engine must be accessible everywhere (sticky header, repeated CTAs, shortcuts to dates) and above all display a consistent price and availability. Surprises (fees added late, ambiguous taxes, unclear conditions) destroy trust and increase drop‑offs. On Booking, users are used to clear pricing and a very short funnel; your site must meet that level of requirement.

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Key points to check:

1) Clear display of taxes and fees from the start (or at least very early).

2) Few steps: room selection → options → payment/guarantee → confirmation.

3) Cancellation policy and opening times visible before payment.

4) Immediate support (clickable phone, WhatsApp if relevant, short form).

Mobile first: the majority of your prospects already are

A large part of searches for hotel + city are done on mobile, often on the move or between two activities. If your site is slow, if the calendar is a hassle, if the fields are too small, or if payment is laborious, the visitor leaves for an OTA in two seconds. Optimising the mobile experience is therefore directly linked to reducing commissions.

On mobile optimisation and the contributions of AI (testing, personalisation, performance), you can consult: Optimising web design for mobile devices using AI.

Landing pages that capture intent (and win back OTA visitors)

A generic showcase site is not enough to compete with the ultra-targeted OTA pages. You need intent‑oriented pages, capable of answering precise searches: hotel near station, romantic weekend, seminar, free parking, heated pool, bookable private spa, family room, late check‑out, etc. Each well‑handled intent creates an opportunity for direct booking.

The role of a good landing page is threefold: (1) rank in SEO and/or be used in advertising, (2) reassure and convince quickly, (3) drive towards booking with a coherent message. To go deeper into the methodology, see: Design of high-converting landing pages.

Examples of blocks that make the difference on these pages:

– An ultra-explicit title (3 minutes' walk from the station, quiet and air‑conditioned rooms).

– 6 to 10 strong photos (not 40), captioned and compressed.

– A list of concrete benefits (access, facilities, services, flexibility).

– A Frequently Asked Questions section oriented to objections (parking, late arrival, pets, baby bed).

– Social proof (recent reviews, excerpts, average rating, labels).

– A constant CTA towards the booking engine (with a clear and true promise).

Create a better reason to book direct (without falling into a price war)

Reducing commission does not necessarily mean lowering the price. Often, the best strategy is to increase the perceived value of booking direct. OTAs have powerful purchase triggers: easy cancellation, trust, volume of reviews, comparisons. Your site must respond with advantages that are simple, understandable, and immediately visible.

Effective options (to adapt to your reality):

– Breakfast included when booking direct (or preferential rate).

– Upgrade subject to availability.

– Late check‑out.

– Best selection of rooms (certain categories direct only).

– Loyalty benefit (private code after 1st stay, offers for repeat customers).

– More flexible conditions on certain dates (when your management allows it).

The critical point: the promise must be kept. A direct-booking advantage that is not actually delivered backfires (complaints, bad reviews, loss of trust). The challenge is to make direct booking obvious, not to force it.

Reassurance: your main weapon against OTAs

Booking sells trust. Your site must do the same, with the right codes: reviews, proof, security, clarity. Many establishments have an excellent product but a site that doesn’t reassure quickly enough. Result: the customer discovers the hotel on Google, then completes on Booking to feel protected.

Reassurance checklist:

– Visible customer reviews (and recent), ideally by themes (cleanliness, location, welcome).

– Legal notice and privacy policy accessible.

– Secure payment (logos + simple explanation of guarantees).

– Clickable phone number + address + map + parking + access details.

– Authentic, consistent, non-misleading photos (15 excellent are better than 60 average).

– FAQ focused on fears: noise, air con, bed, late arrival, children, pets, accessibility.

Local SEO and useful content: fill the site with hot demand

A high-performing site is useless if it doesn’t receive qualified traffic. The challenge is to attract high-intent visitors, i.e. close to booking. Local SEO and helpful content (not generic tourism pages) can feed your booking engine.

Priority actions:

– Optimise your Google Business Profile listing (categories, photos, services, posts, FAQ).

– Structure your site around genuinely useful neighbourhood / point-of-interest pages (distances, walking time, tips, transport).

– Publish decision content (e.g. Where to stay for a concert in…, Hotel with parking near city centre, Spa weekend in…).

Hotel Web Design is the 100% web agency dedicated to the hotel industry, supporting you in all aspects of digital communication: booking websites, natural search engine optimisation specialising in the hotel industry, Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads, social networking campaigns, graphic charters and logos.

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– Add internal links to the booking engine from each intent page.

– Add structured data (Hotel, LocalBusiness, FAQ) if your stack allows it.

SEO is often the most cost‑effective lever in the medium term, because each direct booking from organic search reduces your dependence on intermediaries without direct advertising cost (excluding content production/optimisations).

Controlled advertising (SEA/Meta): pay for your site rather than commission

When you spend on advertising to bring customers to Booking, you pay twice: the click (or visibility) then the commission. Conversely, investing to bring prospects to your site can cost less than a recurring commission, provided your conversion follows.

Common approaches:

– Brand campaigns (Google Ads) to prevent OTAs from capturing your name.

– Intent campaigns (hotel + city + benefit) pointing to dedicated landing pages.

– Retargeting (site visitors who haven’t booked) with a value offer (e.g. breakfast included when booking direct).

– Managed meta search (depending on your configuration), checking true profitability.

The rule: calculate a maximum acceptable acquisition cost (CAC) based on your margin. As long as your average CAC remains below the avoided commission (and operations keep up), you are moving in the right direction.

Concrete strategies to gradually shift the volume

The most sustainable change is gradual. It combines technical optimisations, offer adjustments, and measurement discipline. To complement your thinking with varied approaches, you can browse: 9 strategies to reduce OTA commissions.

On the website side, here is a pragmatic action plan:

– Month 1: optimise the home page (value proposition, CTA, speed), improve mobile, clarify prices/conditions.

– Month 2: create 5 to 10 intent landing pages (station, centre, spa, families, parking, etc.).

– Month 3: launch brand campaigns + retargeting, set up proper conversion tracking.

– Month 4: work on social proof (reviews, photos, FAQ), test a direct offer (non‑price advantage).

– Month 5+: iterate (A/B tests, funnel improvement, new SEO content, optimisation of the most visited pages).

Measure what matters: conversion, acquisition cost and direct share

You will not sustainably reduce commissions by gut feeling. A high-performing site is instrumented. The three essential indicators:

– Site conversion rate (sessions → bookings).

– Acquisition cost (SEA, meta, retargeting, amortised content creation) per booking.

– Share of direct bookings in your overall mix (and its progression).

Add quality indicators: mobile speed, drop-off at the calendar/payment stage, error rate, and number of contacts (calls, forms). Often, small improvements (reducing image weight, simplifying the form, clarifying the conditions) produce immediate gains.

Working with Booking without getting boxed in

Booking will often remain a useful channel. The challenge is to prevent each stay from becoming a costly dependency. Your site must become the centre: the one that turns a first stay (acquired via OTA) into a future direct relationship.

Post-stay actions (legitimate and effective):

– Thank-you email with advantages for a next direct booking.

– Compliant opt-in collection (newsletter/benefits) at the time of the stay.

– Highlighting a simple loyalty programme (even minimal).

– QR code at reception pointing to a customer offer page on your site.

This is where a well-designed site becomes strategic: it is not only used to sell a night, but to build a base of repeat customers.

Go further: commission-free logic and profitability

The dream of many hoteliers is to move towards commission-free bookings, but the reality is a trajectory of successive optimisations. For a reflection centred on maximising profits via direct, this reading can help: Commission-free booking: maximise your profits.

Remember this above all: every point of direct share gained is a recurring gain. Unlike a one-off promotion, a site improvement (speed, funnel, clarity) benefits all channels and all seasons.

Technical points to watch: performance, security and reliability

A high-performing site is also a robust site. If your engine goes down, if payment fails, or if mobile display bugs on some devices, you instantly send the customer back to Booking. Investing in stability is an anti-commission investment.

To check regularly:

– Loading time (notably pages with photos and calendar).

– HTTPS certificate and CMS/plugin updates.

– Backups and monitoring.

– Browser and mobile compatibility.

– Basic accessibility (contrast, text size, buttons).

What you can implement quickly (operational checklist)

– A Book button visible at all times (desktop and mobile).

– A clear promise of Direct benefits above the fold.

– 3 trust signals immediately visible (rating, reviews, payment security).

– A booking funnel tested on mobile in under 2 minutes.

– 5 high-intent landing pages linked to the engine.

– A brand Ads strategy to limit capture by OTAs.

– Clean analytics tracking (conversions, sources, funnel drop-off).

Additional resource on commission reduction

If you want to compare different methods (distribution, programmes, conversion and channel tactics), you can consult: How to reduce commissions paid to Booking.com?.

Bring your site up to direct sales level (and quantify the potential)

The fastest way to reduce commissions is to identify where you are losing direct bookings today: insufficient traffic, lack of intent pages, funnel too long, lack of reassurance, mobile needs improvement, unclear direct offer. Once these points are fixed, the reduction in commissions is not a gamble: it is the logical consequence of a site that captures, convinces and converts.

To quickly estimate the scope of work and priorities, you can request an estimate here: Your quote in 5 minutes.

Conclusion: a high-performing site means one less commission on each booking won

Booking will remain a key player, but a high-performing website gives you back control: control of the experience, the customer relationship, acquisition and margin. By focusing on simplicity, mobile, conversion, intention-driven landing pages, and reassurance at the level of OTA standards, you gradually shift volume towards direct. Each improvement adds up, and the sum of these gains becomes, month after month, a tangible reduction in your commissions.